Leadership is about building and maintaining trust within your team.
The Fourth Universal Promise of Leadership is: to lead effectively by maintaining relationships of trust to achieve and sustain results.
Why would someone want to follow you? The answer is trust. To keep the first three promises of leadership, you must value the priceless currency of relationships that are built upon trust.
Trust is one of the most difficult concepts for sociologists to describe and define. Two exceptional thought leaders on trust in our culture said this:
“Trust lives at the intersection of character and competence”
– Steven M. R. Covey
“Trust is a confident relationship with the unknown”
– Rachel Botsman
Becoming Trustworthy
Trust builds confidence and frees up hearts and minds to commit. Trust forms the basis for a thriving practice culture and draws out the inherent potential of your team (their individual talents, energy and passion). Traditionally, I focus my energy on building trust.
Rachel Botsman proposed that in creating a culture built on trust, we would be served better by focusing on becoming more trustworthy. Rachel’s idea hit me hard. It was spot on. Trust demands the best that we have to offer. Perhaps, it demands all that we have to offer. It is the secret sauce of why people decide to surrender themselves to the great vision you offer.
If you take one thing away from this, take away a renewed devotion to becoming a more trustworthy person. You will likely find that your aspirational identity shows up with more clarity, courage, conviction and compassion.
Back to Clarity
People follow leaders they trust by surrendering to a compelling vision that engages their hearts and minds. Others will trust your vision if you are clear, courageous, have conviction, and are compassionate. These are the building blocks of a shared (collective) style of operation and leadership in which each individual in the organization contributes, benefits and leads.
As I end this series, I leave you with my belief that developing and elevating your leadership competencies is the best investment you can make. Effective leaders who deliver on the four universal promises of leadership create strong cultures that outperform average cultures by multiples, not percentages, in every measurable dimension over time.
If you enjoyed this article and want to read the previous four articles on the Four Universal Promises of Leadership, click the links below.
Leadership Development is about Developing Yourself first.
How setting the right direction in your practice leads to meaningful work.
Engage Stakeholders and Build Accountability in Your Practice
3 Elements of leadership that increase results
Would you like to learn more about how Leadership and Coaching Culture can change your team dynamics, then download our free ebook: 7 Surprising Steps to Grow your Practice Through Leadership.
Dr. Joel Small and Dr. Edwin McDonald, the founders of Line of Sight Coaching, are dental practitioners, authors, speakers and Business Leadership Coaches who work with healthcare professionals to help them build more successful practices so they can live the balanced life they seek.
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